Animals in Layers
by Virgins-and-Surgeons
Summary: There's no love without a little fear. On the other hand, fear can stand perfectly by itself without love. It's like that for a reason. Dr. Jacqueline Leblanc, through the effects of the good Dr. Crane and Arkham itself, is about to learn the difference.
1. Dinner with Kaseff

**((Inspiration hit me; couldn't help myself. And though there's going to be love, in a very strange and unnatural way, there's going to be about _zero_ romance. One: because I suck at writing fluffy things, and two: I still can't see Crane ever being loving or fluffy to any living thing. So, yeah: no 'Caring woman teaches Crane to love' sort of thing here. I have more fun with the antisocial, misanthropic, generally-an-asshole Crane anyway. :D))**

* * *

"And did you consider my offer?"

Two people, a woman and a man, sit at a small table in a chic new up-and-coming restaurant and watch each other from across a small circular table (very modern, very chic, but very cumbersome to reach over at times) polished to glimmering perfection, a low lamplight hanging over their small table and giving little illumination to the dim restaurant (ambiance, _dahling_). As the man asks her this, the woman, mid to late thirties, long natural red hair hanging down her back, speckled with a few troublesome grays here and there, laughs slightly. There's a distinct stain of red lipstick on the edge of the wine glass at her lips.

"Sa_sha_, I already told you. I've thought over it, and I'm perfectly happy with working for the city." She giggles, flirtatiously, and he knows that she's kind of drunk by now. Tipsy, that's the word. He runs a hand over his short, slicked back blond hair, a nervous tic. He sighs, narrowing his eyes at her a moment.

"I prefer Doctor Kaseff, _Jacqueline_." He chides, and she very slightly narrows glazed stormy blue-gray eyes.

"I told you to call me Jack when we're alone, y'know. Yeah, _you know." _She smiles again now, messing with her top because it's kind of tight. She did pick the tightest one she had, though, her white blouse with the shiny black buttons, and her short black pencil skirt that's also too tight to be comfortable. Oh, and those black heels that hurt her feet.

And she goes through all the trouble just to mess with Doctor Sasha Kaseff. He's been her mentor since she was fresh out of med school herself, bright-eyed and bushy tailed and sure that she was going to change the world. That didn't happen, of course, but she remained close friends with Kaseff, a very serious, parental sort of doctor that she had shadowed for a period of time when she was still trying to get her own white coat. She likes him, because he's kind of like a big brother who teaches you about mental illnesses and does other neat things. Things like trying to offer you jobs.

"You know I prefer to call you Jacqueline. But in any case, _Jack_, the opportunity is absolutely golden. You've stated, many…_many_ times that you're very bored with your current position; why not try?" Kaseff asks, leaning his chin on his fist, his elbow on the table, as he watches her finish her glass of wine. This is her second, maybe her third. He's going to have to stop her soon. His gray eyes narrow slightly, with disdain, as she finishes it off and then idly waves her empty glass at the passing maître d'. "Jacqueline…haven't you had enough?" He asks, dryly, as a waiter that looks rather busy, disheveled, weaves through the tables and produces a bottle, refilling Jacqueline's glass with ruby red wine.

"Nah. Anyway, Doc Kaseff," Jacqueline says easily, swirling her merlot (or was that pinto noir?) in her glass, before taking a sip and letting the wine coat the back of her throat. She sits the glass back down on the table and her eyes meet his, as she taps her nails on the edge of the plate holding what's left of her steak. "You're right; I am bored lately…but…" She trails off, before letting out the odd giggle. "You're just a doctor; what if they don't _need_ me there?"

"I assure you," Kaseff tells her, regretting letting her get her paws on the wine, "We have no excess of people wanting to work at Arkham. It's a very dangerous job, you see."

"Pfft. It's not the danger I'm worried about, Dr.," Jacqueline mumbles, staring out the window. There's an odd seriousness about her now, and it's almost startling how quickly she switches between her irreverent and serious moods. "Not that. Anyway, you can't just hand out jobs."

"I can make a recommendation. The director…well, you've heard of him, I'm sure."

"Mm hm. Crane, right?" Jacqueline queries, her eyes back and focusing on Kaseff's face. He's older than she is, and she's pushing forty. She's got laugh lines, he's got crow's feet, and they're both getting old and they both know it, too. As he speaks, his voice deep and commanding respect, she glances idly to the night outside; it's getting dark, has to be ten or eleven by now.

"Jonathan Crane. I'm sure he'd be pleased to have an older, more experienced doctor on the job instead of one of the newer breed. You know how devil-may-care the ones fresh out of med school are." Kaseff closes his eyes and rubs his temple, offhandedly; he briefly wonders if it would be all right to join Jack in her drinking, but thinks better of it since he's driving.

"Insinuating my age, doctor? You know how that wounds me." Jacqueline sets her half empty wine glass down, which she's counted to be her third, and steeples her fingers under her chin, staring at Kaseff with another flirtatious smile. She really shouldn't have put her hands on the wine. "You sound like an old man when you talk about the damn kids nowadays, you know."

Kaseff, nudging aside his empty plate of grilled chicken, calls for the bill and waits on the ticket. "We're getting on in the years, Jacqueline. I'm a month away from fifty-seven, you're thirty-nine, three weeks to forty. Nowadays, we're aged."

"Like fine wine." Jacqueline smiles, draining the rest of her glass and setting it aside. "Anyway…about that offer…" She trails off, still smiling coyly, and inwardly curses touching the wine. Had Kaseff planned it, to make her say yes? He knows that she does love her wine. Maybe a little too much. "Mm…"

"There's always the choice of a trial period there, maybe a week, or a month, and then you make your decision on permanency. It's all up to Doctor Crane in the end, of course, but I can't see why he'd say no. We can try anyway." Kaseff nudges, seeing her apprehensions crumbling.

"Oh…fine, I guess it couldn't _hurt_." Jacqueline giggles again, a bit drunkenly, and Kaseff smiles slightly. It fades when Jacqueline tries to stand and nearly topples over, and Kaseff has to escort her out of the restaurant and to the car, after paying the bill. He walks her to the car and opens the door, and Jack slides in thankfully. The drive back to her apartment isn't long, and he walks her to the door and then they say their goodbyes, before Kaseff drives away, and Jacqueline makes her way inside and lies down on her couch to rest her eyes for just a second.

* * *

There's a constant loud noise somewhere off in the hazy distance. Jacqueline tries to hide her face in the material of the couch, and her head is pulsing with pain. After a moment, the noise stops and she sighs inwardly, before keeping her eyes closed and trying to get back to sleep.

She snaps awake and rolls off the couch, her elbow colliding with the wooden table set out in front of it as she falls, as her cell phone goes off in her ear. Now her arm is hurting horribly, a tingling, numbing pain that makes her hiss obscenities as she grabs at the phone. Today was her day off; she wanted to sleep off the hangover she knew she was going to have.

"What?!" She snarls into the phone, forgoing any greeting, and is surprised to hear an unfamiliar voice. It's cool and detached, and there's a distinct feeling of dread when she hears him speak.

"Doctor Jacqueline Leblanc?" The caller queries, his voice frigid, and she nods to no one, mainly out of habit.

"Yes. Whom am I speaking with, exactly?" Jacqueline twirls a lock of hair around her finger, curious. There's what sounds like a very close to inaudible sigh on the other end, before the caller speaks again.

"Crane. Jonathan Crane." He tells her, and Jacqueline's tone straightens up instantly. Of course he had to call when she was hungover. There's a soft papery rustling noise, and she wonders if he's flipping through files while he's talking with her. "Doctor Kaseff made a recommendation of you; you work for the city, correct? It says here that you're currently in the psych ward of Gotham General."

"Yes, erm…Mr. Crane." Jacqueline is trying to very quietly rifle through her own home compiled folder to get a good idea of what Crane might be looking at for reference. "You've called rather quickly."

"Dr. Kaseff held you in high regard, and Arkham is experiencing a lack of sufficiently experienced personnel." He states, in a decidedly disinterested tone, making no attempt to try and hide his ennui. "Your history is comprehensive over your years of practice… fourteen years, correct?"

"That's right."

"I see. And you've dabbled in the pharmaceutical aspect as well?"

"Psychopharmacology? Yes, though my major experience has been in clinical and criminal psychology, and most of that has been focused on humanistic and existential psychology processes integrated into therapy-"

"Very well." The good doctor cuts her off, and with her mouth still open in the process of forming words; she shuts it and listens to him, a bit irritated. "Are you still interested in this trial period at Arkham?" He asks her, his tone clipped but his voice very calm and quiet. Jacqueline hesitates; she's told Kaseff yes, but she was more than a little drunk when she did. She's unsure now.

"If you need time to think about it, then feel free. There's no rush. Give me a call if you decide that you'd like to take the opportunity." He tells her, and she nods again to no one.

"Thank you, doctor Crane. I'll be sure to."

The other end of the line goes dead as Crane hangs up on her, and she briefly wonders how he got her cell phone number. Kaseff, probably; he's very intent on getting her into Arkham, but it's probably just because he wants her to move up from Gotham General; she's said time and time again that it's a relatively mundane job and she's far beyond bored with it. But that doesn't mean that she wants to just randomly jump from hospital psych ward to an asylum for the criminally insane. The incredibly _dangerous_ criminally insane.

Jacqueline spends a minute pondering, thinking about the possibilities of working in Arkham, what she may accomplish there, before realizing that she's been pacing and doing a mental checklist and generally looking kind of stupid. She groans under her breath, rolls her neck on her shoulders and hears a sequence of small pops, and decides that a shower is in order. Or a bath. A long, hot bath, with rose-scented bath soap and pink bubbles.


	2. Insanity Defense

One day later, doctor Jacqueline Leblanc is walking through the halls of Gotham General, white coat on her shoulders with her stitched last name misspelled (Lelbanc) and to her small office, Spartan in the way of decoration; there's barely anything other than a sofa and a chair, a desk and another chair behind it at the back of the room. She sits at her desk, brushing loose strands of hair out of her face in a jerky, distracted sweep of her fingers across her forehead, before opening her a file and beginning to skim through it, distractedly. It's just another patient they want her to ascertain isn't insane. From the file, she doesn't really think he is, but will schedule an interview with anyway. Later on today should work.

Her phone rings and she picks it up without moving her gaze from the file, answering in a professional tone. "Doctor Leblanc speaking."

"Yes, doctor? This is James Mathley. We have a man here…from Gotham General's psych wing, actually." A male voice answers, sounding distracted.

"Yes? There are more than a few patients here in this section of the hospital, Mr. Mathley." Jacqueline cradles the phone between her shoulder and neck, holding it there while she uses her hands to turn papers, hunting for a particular file.

"Mr…Sanders, actually. A man you treated personally. He is currently preparing for trial, and I wanted to contact you personally, as his doctor."

"Sanders? I assume you're on the prosecution's side, then?" Jacqueline queries, reading glasses low on the bridge of her nose, and she bumps them up with a jab of her thumb before opening Sanders' file, putting it down, and then reaching into a cabinet at her desk for her knife and stick of summer sausage. She usually just had a slice or six of it instead of lunch.

"Yes, we are. The defense has already contacted a very high…profile medical expert of their own. We're…to be frank, we're going to need all the help we can get." He sighs the end, exhaustively, and Jacqueline nods to herself as she cuts off a slice of summer sausage and takes a bite of it, already beginning to slice off a second. She's glancing down at Sanders' file, and when she speaks, her voice is somewhat muffled by the sausage.

"High profile? Like who?"

"…Doctor Crane. Mr. Sanders has plead insanity, and Crane is supporting this theory as his criminal psychologist." Mathley sighs, and Jacqueline swears around the mouthful as she nicks herself with the knife at the name 'Crane'.

"Crane? What's he doing with small-time Mafioso wannabes like Sanders?" Leblanc queries, now digging into her other drawer for a bandage, trying to keep from bleeding on anything important at the same time.

"I know, I know. But I'm sure you've heard those rumors about Crane being in Falcone's pocket." Mathley responds, and Jacqueline swallows the mouthful of sausage and then sticks her cut thumb in her mouth, now fumbling with a band-aid.

"Who hasn't? Anyway, you want me to help prove that he wasn't insane, right?" She asks, trying to smooth out the band-aid over her thumb. "I mean…you would like to have me testify about my findings on his mental state, correct?" She corrects herself, momentarily too casual for her own good. Mathley seems amused, and chuckles slightly.

"Yes, that would be incredibly helpful. And you will testify about your results on his medical state, correct? Your file on him here says that you found him lucid and competent."

"I'll need to set up another interview with him, yes, but I doubt he would have changed very much over this time. It hasn't been an extended amount of time since he left my care; he showed no signs of mental illness in that time." Jacqueline brushes more loose strands of hair out of her face, strands that have slipped out of the tight bun against the back of her skull, and once again jabs her silver reading glasses so that they're higher on the bridge of her nose. They're too large for her, too loose; they slip down when she looks downwards, but she likes how classy the large rectangular frames look.

"Thank you, doctor Leblanc. It would be great if we could get together in a face-to-face interview and prepare for this."

"Of course, of course. If you'd rather, you could come to my office and I'll give you what paperwork and evidence I can scrounge up."

"That would be great. When are you free?" Mathley asks her, and she flips through her mental schedule book, chewing on the end of the knife as she thinks.

"Tomorrow, nine A.M.?"

"Sounds fine. Thank you, doctor Leblanc."

"Thanks." She hangs up, and begins to scrounge up all the papers she can find on Sanders, mentally preparing herself for the high possibility of having to go toe-to-toe with Jonathan Crane in the courtroom.

* * *

The meeting between Mathley and Jacqueline goes well. He's a tired-looking lawyer, younger than her by about ten years, with a general air of exhaustion about him. He doesn't seem to expect to have all the relevant papers, photocopies of the originals, handed to him in a file as soon as he walks in the door.

"Oh…is this it?" He asks her, surprise in his voice, as she shuts the door behind him and walks to her desk in her sensible heels.

"Mmhm. I thought that it would be prudent to gather up what I could find before we met and I had to hunt for it anyway. Take a seat, Mr. Mathley." Jacqueline states, sitting behind her desk again, her white coat fluttering before she has to stand and smooth it down under her so as not to look stupid, her eyes closed in a tense expression as she does. She looks like she has a migraine; she pulls off her glasses and wipes them off with the corner of her white coat, keeping her eyes focused on them as they, of course, smear further. "What did you wish t talk with me about?"

Mathley blinks, looking at her face again and up from her glasses. "Well…I was going to ask about Mr. Sanders…but all of my questions' answers are right there." He taps the folder on the edge of her desk and she looks up at him, putting her glasses back on her face. She wrinkles her nose in displeasure, and pulls them off again, glaring at the lenses slightly as she begins to dig into her desk and sets a small spray bottle of lens cleaner on the edge of the desk, now rifling for her cleaning cloth.

"Ah, I see. Well, there are a few things I don't have in there, things I couldn't scribe down or forgot to. Over all, I feel that Mr. Sanders was completely coherent and culpable if he's committed a crime. What crime has he been charged with?" She sits up, spraying her lenses with the lens cleaner and then beginning to rub it off with the cloth.

"Well, he's been charged with murder. Multiple counts of it, actually. Four counts of murder, and we're running with his known affiliation with people who work for Carmine Falcone." Mathley watches her clean the lenses, before putting the glasses back on her face. Satisfied, she puts away the cleaning utensils and instead comes back up from her desk drawer with a handful of caramels.

"Mm…that explains a few things I noticed when he was in the hospital for a gunshot wound to the arm. Files read that he said they were wounds sustained in a mugging. He was rather nervous when he was in the hospital, too; as if he were half-expecting someone to come on in and finish the job." She explains, chewing on her caramel as she speaks. "They sent him to my jurisdiction for a mental evaluation, on account of his jitteriness and some relatively odd habits. As you can see from the evaluation notes, in the file for you, I saw nothing to suggest mental illness. Only being an ass." She mumbles that last part, remembering the annoying man and his holier-than-thou attitude during the evaluation. Mathley looks up at her, his professionally short blackish hair making his blueish eyes look bright, and nods slightly. She holds a caramel out to him and he takes it, staring a moment before putting it in his mouth.

"Good caramels. Anyway, thank you. I'm a little nervous about this trial, to be honest; it's my first murder trial, and I've got the insanity defense and Jonathan Crane to go up against." He shifts nervously, and Jacqueline guesses that he's younger than she thought, possibly fresh out of law school.

"Don't worry. With this guy's file, a guilty verdict is pretty much assured. I know Crane's supposed to be a miracle man when it comes to getting the guilty by reason of insanity verdict, but even if he's magic, he's going to have a hell of a time proving this guy insane." Leblanc assures him, though she herself is apprehensive as well. It's not about _proving_ you're right when it come to the insanity defense, it's about convincing a _jury_ that you're right. It's about appearances and how sure of yourself you sound. It's about making twelve total strangers believe you.

There's bound to be sparks when two criminal psychologists throw down in the courtroom over a client's sanity. And with one just a hospital doctor that has done a passing psychological evaluation, and the other the director of an insane asylum and suspected of being in the mob's pocket, those sparks can light fires.

"Anyway, Mr. Mathley, I'll be spending time until the trial working on my reasoning. I would like to meet the psychologist that's going to do the defense's current psychological evaluation, as well, if that's possible." She rubs her temple and opens her eyes, looking at him, and Mathley is staring at her.

"Well…actually, I was going to ask you if...you'd do it. You're qualified and…well, we can't get any more funding to hire any specialists." He laughs here, nervously, and Jacqueline just stares. Deadpan. Her migraine is growing.

"So you'd like me to be the defense's main psychological expert, then?" She asks him, her glasses balanced on her knuckles, her fingers rubbing her temples in small, circular motions. Her glasses bounce up and down as she does. Mathley nods, sympathetically.

"I'm sorry we have to put you on the spot like this, but…you're really the best chance we have." He tells her, and she opens her eyes, sighing.

"I'll do it; if you're really hurting this much, then I don't have a choice if we want to win." Jacqueline states, and sees Mathley brighten up. He reaches his hand out and she takes it, shaking his hand.

"Thanks, Dr. Leblanc; it's great that you're helping us on this." Mathley smiles, and Jacqueline cocks her head, confused.

"Us? Aren't you the prosecutor?" She asks him, confused, and he seems to stare at her a moment, wondering if she's joking.

"You're…you're not very involved with the legal system, are you?" He asks her, putting the other caramel on the back of his tongue, and she realizes that she's itching for a smoke. Or a drink.

"No, because I'm not a lawyer. I'm a _doctor_." She snaps back, smart-assed, and he seems to back off a bit. Then, Jacqueline feels a little guilty. "Sorry…need a smoke. Hospital won't let me smoke in my office."

Mathley relaxes, slightly. "Oh. I'm sorry; I didn't mean it like that. Anyway, I'm sitting in on this trial and working as a…well, as a…erm…"

"Gopher?" She queries, and he laughs nervously.

"Well, I wouldn't say…gopher…" He laughs, and it trails off into dejected silence. "Yeah, a gopher. Assistant to the assistant DA."

"I didn't know the assistant District Attorney had an assistant."

"…Yeah, I didn't either." Mathley laughs, though it's dry and humorless, and Jacqueline smiles sympathetically at him.

"Who're you working for? What's the assistant DA's name again?" She queries, the name slipping past her at the moment. It's a woman, and she can still vaguely see her face, but can't put a name on it.

"Rachel Dawes. She wanted to contact you, and had me do it for her. She's a bit busy, you know; Crane's gotten a lot of criminals off and sent them to Arkham. It's…kind of susp…"

"You can say suspicious. We psychologists don't have a secret club that we go to every Monday underneath Arkham and discuss insanities and people who talk bad about us." She quips, dryly, and he laughs nervously in response, fiddling with his tie. "Anyway," Jacqueline redirects the conversation deftly, rubbing her thumbs together in her lap in an attempt to dissuade the cravings, "Tell Ms. Dawes that I'd like to speak or meet with her before trial, to try and prepare for whatever Dr. Crane is going to throw at us."

"Yes," Mathley brightens up, standing and shaking Jacqueline's hand again, "Thank you, doctor, thanks for helping us. I'll be sure to tell her that, and I've got to leave; you're probably opening up a huge gap in your time to meet on such short notice." He laughs, and she shakes her head slightly, standing and very eager for him to leave so that she can take her smoke break outside.

"It's no problem, Mr. Mathley. I'll be sure to gather what I can for the trial, though I've given most of it to you already; please give that to Ms. Dawes, will you? Thanks, and goodbye, Mr. Mathley." She guides him to the door, and he turns to say goodbye while she blows past him, locking her door quickly and then hurrying out the door. She takes the time to ring her lunchtime out, before walking out the door and around to the side of the hospital, quick to grab her pack of smokes from her coat pocket and lighting up. While she lets smoke waft easily from in between her lips and disappear into the air above her, Jacqueline wonders how the hell she's going to win this one.


	3. Courtroom Mudslinging

Court. She's always hated court.

Jacqueline is walking towards the courtroom where she's going to testify, a folder under her arm of photocopied papers regarding to Sanders, her red hair pulled back into her professional bun and wearing respectable, professional clothing; black knee-length pencil skirt, white blouse, sensible heels, clean and low-key makeup. Respectable with a capital R.

She walks into the courtroom and moves to take her seat over near Dawes and, of course, Mathley, though Mathley is sitting back and generally looking unimportant.

"Ms. Dawes," Jacqueline smiles as she sees the professional woman, and she turns to smile at the doctor.

"Doctor Leblanc," Dawes smiles, and they shake hands before sitting down, beginning to talk quietly about their game plan. It consists of trying their damndest to show that Sanders was and is not insane, and is perfectly culpable for his crimes. Crane arrives not long after, and Jacqueline stands as he passes by.

"Doctor Crane," She says, and thought it's the first time meeting him, she can instantly tell that the frigid voice over the phone fits the owner; he's very calm as they shake hands, and the two exchange a glance that proves how they're dissembling one another with their stares.

"Ms. Leblanc," He says, and Jacqueline isn't sure if he's knowingly omitted her doctorate title, or if it was pure accident. "It's a pleasure to meet you, though these could have been better circumstances." His voice is very quiet, but his stare is startlingly icy, and it's not because of the color of his eyes.

"No better method of discerning a psychologist's abilities than in a court, Dr. Crane." Jacqueline answers, and the delivery smooth and cold. He seems to make a small noise in the back of his throat showing that he's understood her and makes his way to his side, laying down his own file. Jacqueline sits down, narrowing her eyes at his back for a moment before turning back to Dawes. "So this is the fabled Jonathan Crane."

"Yes, that's him," Rachel says beside her, rifling through her personal file for Sanders, and her voice is rather terse when she speaks, "Magic man for Falcone's men. This is the second he's tried to get off with the insanity plea."

"You sound like you don't like him." Jacqueline mumbles, still rifling for a particular paper that she wants to have with her, if she should so need it.

"I never said that."

"You're as suspicious as we all are." Jacqueline states in a question-that's-not-really-a-question sort of way, and catches Rachel nodding very slightly from the corner of her eye.

"You can't help but suspect." She mumbles, before court proceedings begin.

* * *

The trial proceeds, each side calling a battery of witnesses that support their notions of Sanders' sanity. At the very end is the testimony of the two psychologists, which everyone has really been waiting for. The prosecution goes first, and Jacqueline Leblanc takes the stand.

"Please, Dr. Leblanc, explain your observations of Mr. Sanders when he was in your care." Rachel instructs, standing in front of the seat that Jacqueline is perched in. She glances down at her file, pulling out her reading glasses and putting them on, before beginning to recite.

"In my opinion as his mental health examiner, Mr. Sanders is very competent, lucid, and is very aware of the morality of his decisions. When I examined him in the first visit he had to Gotham General," She begins, before being interrupted.

"Your honor, I see no reason why the first medical examination is in any way relevant to Mr. Sanders' current mental state, as the first examination was over one year ago." Crane interrupts her, and though he's still relatively even-toned, everyone in the courtroom hears him clearly.

"Maintained. Doctor Leblanc, please omit any evidence or testifying of the first examination and remain to the second. And Doctor Crane, please do not try to raise your own objections and leave that to the defense attorney at your right." The judge tells her and then scolds Crane gently, and Jacqueline begins to rub her left thumb and forefinger together in agitation. Half her evidence was based on his coherence during the first examination. No matter, she can work around it.

"…Alright then. During my _second_ examination," she tosses a harsh glare over the top of her glasses at Crane from across the room, and she's sure that he sees it, before looking back to her papers, "Mr. Sanders remembered me quite clearly from our first meeting and was quick to let me know this with several derogatory terms directed towards my parentage and my mother's occupation. He then began to, very unconvincingly I might add, pretend that he did not remember our first session, and say that his outburst was merely surprise at my being a woman." She raises an eyebrow here, before flipping to another page in her files.

"I noted that though he complained about nervousness, he was not sweating, his pulse was even, and his breathing was also even. He was not jittery and did not seem afraid of me, as he also claimed. When he attempted to babble incoherent things to try and throw my analysis off, I noted that he repeated the same three words more than thrice during this half minute-long rant of incoherence, those four words being 'trouble', 'dove', 'woman', and 'help'."

"By those four words, I derived assumed meaning, which would be-"

"Your honor, we did not come here to listen to Dr. Leblanc make assumptions about random words stated by Mr. Sanders. We came hear to listen to cold, hard evidence, and this is not it." The defense attorney objects, and Rachel snaps back her own argument at him.

"This is psychoanalysis, and this woman is a trained psychologist that knows how to interpret these sorts of subconscious signs, Mr. Anderson." Dawes argues, and the judge bangs his gavel to get their attentions.

"Maintained. Ms. Dawes, though the area of psychoanalysis is blurred at the edges, this court of law will not allow Dr. Leblanc's assumptions to masquerade as evidence. Continue, doctor, and omit your own opinions unless they have a psychological basis."

Jacqueline glares at Crane again, because she knows that he's probably behind blocking her every argument, before continuing. "Very well. I have nothing further to add at this moment." She closes her file, as Dawes continues.

"Dr. Leblanc, did you ever notice any sort of mental illness in your time with Mr. Sanders?" She asks, and Jacqueline shakes her head stiffly.

"Not at all. In my _medical_ opinion, Mr. Sanders is coherent and culpable for his actions. He showed no outward signs of any sort of genuine mental illness when I treated him, at any point in time." Leblanc explains, and she once again meets Crane's icy eyes, and anyone that could have seen them both staring would have seen a glare pass between them. This is a competition between them now, at least in Jacqueline's mind. She dares him with her eyes, 'Why don't you put something up against that, _wunderkind_?', as Rachel queries about Sanders' mannerisms. Jacqueline testifies to this, giving sufficient evidence, in her own opinion.

The defense attorney begins cross-examination, and he's a very confident man in how he attempts to tear her down.

"Dr., tell me: did my client ever directly show any hint of danger? To himself or others?" He asks her, slickly, and she keeps cool and calm.

"Not directly, no."

"Isn't it possible for some patients of mental illness not to develop obvious symptoms that say, a therapist, might be able to observe, such as OCD or unpredictable temper, Dr. Leblanc?" He asks her, and she narrows her eyes slightly.

"It's been observed before, but it's rather rare-"

"It _is_ possible though, isn't it?" He cuts her off, and she sighs the answer.

"Yes."

"And is it not possible that symptoms that have already manifested themselves can be suppressed under drugs, such as pain medication? Say, for a gunshot wound that my client suffered when in Gotham General and under your care?"

"…" Jacqueline is silent for a moment, and Anderson raps his knuckles on the bench.

"Doctor?" He urges, and she opens her eyes to glare at the suave, brunette man in the very nice suit. Nathan Anderson, millionaire, and high-profile defense lawyer. His charm and confidence has won over a jury or two in his time. He's also insufferable to any prosecutor within a mile radius of him.

"Your honor, my witness is a psychiatrist, not a medical doctor; I don't see why she should have to answer questions that aren't focused on her primary experience." Rachel raises an objection, and the judge looks at her.

"Overruled; Dr. Leblanc has a degree in Psychopharmacology, and is completely aware of the effects of drugs on the mind. Dr. Leblanc, please answer the question." He orders, and after a moment of strained silence, Jacqueline answers tersely.

"…Yes. It's possible."

Anderson turns around, smiling, and walks towards his seat. "No further questions, your honor."

Jacqueline is dismissed and Crane takes the stand to testify on his findings.

"I don't know what patient Dr. Leblanc might have seen," Crane begins, coolly, and Jacqueline begins to fume in her seat, "But it's obviously not Mr. Sanders. In my observations, he has shown to be a danger to himself and others, and is completely unfit for general population in a prison."

"And, Dr. Crane, how have you come to this conclusion?" Anderson asks him, confidently, and Crane shuffles his papers before answering in his quiet voice, leaning into the microphone a bit too closely as he does.

"Through my own mental evaluation on Mr. Sanders, I have found that this nervousness that Dr. Leblanc has dismissed is actually a serious panic condition that masks itself when he is around people he is familiar with, such as Dr. Leblanc herself. When he met with me, he was indeed as nervous as he described and suffering these somatic symptoms; I have his pulse rate written here, and it is above normal by a large margin. In my _medical_ opinion," Jacqueline sees Crane glance to her with a brief flash of bright blue, before his gaze returns to his own papers, "Mr. Sanders committed these crimes in a haze of panic, caused in part by his nervous condition. There is no possible way that he can safely be contained in a prison, without casualty to himself or others; I suggest that he be moved to the Arkham Institute for protection concerning himself and others around him." Crane finishes, leaning back in his seat, and Rachel moves to cross-examine the good doctor.

"Doctor Crane, you say that this is a…panic condition, correct?" She asks him, and he gives a curt nod.

"That is correct."

"These sorts of conditions usually manifest after a traumatic experience, don't they? It's very rare for panic conditions to simply appear out of thin air." She glances at him, and he smirks slightly, beginning to speak into the microphone in front of him again.

"I assume you've heard this from Dr. Leblanc, correct? I don't know where she created the idea; panic disorders can manifest themselves as panic attacks in childhood, which Mr. Sanders is on record in having. The cause could have been in his childhood, and could have been a number of mundane things not worth remembering, much less mention: a fall, a bite from an animal or insect, a bad experience during schooling…the possibilities of situations for something like this disorder to begin are quite endless, to be plain about it." He explains, confidently, almost smugly, before sitting back in his seat again.

"And," Rachel begins, annoyed with Crane's smugness, "Does this explain why such symptoms didn't appear when Mr. Sanders was in Gotham General? I have, on record, that there were multiple psychiatric interviews, and though one was when he was under the effects of pain medication, there was another briefer closing examination before his release when he was not under the effects of medication. Dr. Leblanc has it written here that she still sees no outward signs of mental illness, though by everyday logic, he should be having an attack or two by being in the hospital, and under such stressful circumstances. An explanation?"

Crane glances at Jacqueline, and then begins to speak with a cold and detached medical tone in his voice, though there's creeping satisfaction behind his words.

"Dr. Leblanc, though a very qualified doctor, cannot be said to be the final word on mental illness. She is just a human being, like we all are, and humans are and have always been highly fallible. She could have just made a mista_ke_." The last part of 'mistake' is pronounced very harshly, as a loud clicking sort of sound, as if he's annoyed with being questioned like this. Jacqueline can't contain herself and stands from her seat here, Mathley trying to get her to sit down again, her chair scooting back loudly as she shoots to her feet.

"Doctor Crane, my credentials are as equally worthwhile as yours, and the diploma on my wall is worth no less than yours in the equivalent of medical knowledge." She snaps, before the judge bangs his gavel.

"Dr. Leblanc, calm yourself and be silent; I did not ask for your opinion on doctor Crane's medical advice." He says, loudly, to be heard over the din of the courtroom at Jacqueline's outburst.

"Dr. Leblanc," Crane pulls off his glasses and begins to polish them on his silk tie, keeping his eyes carefully focused on his glasses and not her face, "though you may not think so, this is a courtroom, not a gentleman's club; you do not have control over the proceedings and you are not the center of attention. When they install a pole for you, I will call to let you know." He says, clearly and in monotone, though he's giving his trademark smirk again; he tries to keep his face passive and expressionless at the same time as he smiles, and so the very corners of his mouth are turned up in a smug smirk.

"Doctor Crane!" Rachel shouts, disbelieving about what she's just heard him say, and Jacqueline, who had sat down, shoots to her feet again and the chair scoots back loudly again as she slams her hands on the table, cheeks flushed and red in anger, indignated and scandalized.

"My besmirched history and past employment isn't a part of this trial, doctor Crane!!" She shouts, before the loud banging of the judge's gavel snaps her out of her angry reverie, as she glares at Crane, who continues to polish his glasses.

"Doctor Leblanc, _one_ more outburst like that and I will hold you in contempt of this court and have you removed! And doctor Crane, keep personal grudges out of this court's proceedings, as they have _no_ place in a hall of justice." He orders in a booming voice, and Jacqueline sits down, flushed, enraged, her forefinger and thumb rubbing together at a frighteningly hard grinding pace. Mathley lays a hand on her shoulder, and she shrugs it off violently.

"No more questions, your honor." Rachel murmurs, walking back to her seat not far from Jacqueline, and gives her a sympathetic glance at how Crane has just shamelessly humiliated her in open court, and on live television, no less.

"We will adjourn for a lunch break, before the prosecution and defense give their closing arguments." The judge announces, and Jacqueline stands, indignation in her very eyes, as she watches Crane step down from the bench and walk, very coolly, towards her, not looking at her for even a moment. He gives her no notice as she blows past him, quite rudely, and charges outside to have a cigarette. Maybe six.

* * *

Closing argument. Rachel asks for Leblanc to be able to make a statement of her own, and it is granted. Jacqueline, her voice a bit wheezing, reeking of cigarettes and smoke, stands and begins to speak.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the court, I don't know where Dr. Crane was given his doctorate, but they apparently do not teach the line between sanity and transparent lies; Mr. Sanders is obviously lying about his state of mind, and I hope that you are not going to fall for such lies, confusion, and courtroom smoke and mirrors. Doctor Crane seems to be quite gullible, if he honestly believes this man is anything more or less than completely sane." She tosses a snide look at Crane, and he looks very displeased with her.

"Objection; doctor Leblanc, are you questioning Doctor Crane's credentials, intelligence, and teaching?" Anderson asks her, and she shakes her head, smiling wryly as she does.

"Of course not, Mr. Anderson; I am merely stating that perhaps Jonathan Crane is not the psychiatrist that he _thinks_ he is." She adds the last part to make it sting, and the judge holds the overruling. Jacqueline sits down, Rachel states that she has the utmost assurance that Sanders is very sane, and then takes her silence. Anderson and the judge allow Crane to have the same little speech that Jacqueline did, and he stands from his chair breezily, composed and calm.

"Though Dr. Leblanc would have you think that I am an imbecile, I assure you that my degree at Yale University is as genuine as hers at _Brown_ University. I am perfectly coherent and intelligent enough to know that Mr. Sanders is not mentally healthy and therefore deserves to be in a facility that can appropriately care for him, such as Arkham. If I may be bold enough to assume," Crane looks at Leblanc now, as it has become not a battle over Sanders' insanity, but between two psychiatrists that are content with trading blows between sharp words, his eyes icy cold as he stares at her, "I would say that too many strobe lights in her youth may have caused some damage to her coheren_ce_."

Leblanc closes her eyes as her face flushes in anger again, and Crane sits down. Anderson gives his own closing statement about how sending Sanders to jail would be a horrific mistake, and then the jury adjourns to deliberate. It takes only four hours, during which Jacqueline glares at Crane whenever she sees him, and he is completely aware of it, before the jury comes back with their verdict.

Not guilty by reason of insanity.

They lost; it's clear that they're going to send Sanders to Arkham, just as Crane suggested. The court clears out, as Jacqueline apologizes to Rachel for the loss, and she tells Leblanc that it wasn't due to lack of evidence that they lost. Jacqueline walks out of the courtroom, defeated, angry, and walks into the elevator, hitting the button for the first floor and standing in the corner, agitated.

"What are the odds?" She hears someone say, and her eyes widen when she realizes that it's Crane walking into the elevator and standing beside her, coolly. Her face flushes with rage again, but she says nothing as the doors slide shut.


	4. Preparations for Dinner

"Doctor Leblanc." Crane says her name, easily, keeping his eyes focused straight ahead.

"Doctor Crane." Jacqueline growls, and she thinks she sees Crane smirk out of the corner of her eye.

"No reason to be so hostile, Dr. Leblanc. It was _only_ court." He tells her, distantly, and his smirk is gone when she looks to him.

"No reason to drag my name through the mud, Dr. Crane; did you do that for spite, or just to win? I assume you got the information from my file." She can't help but snap, as they descend towards the second floor. Crane adjusts his silver watch, glancing at the time without much interest. Jacqueline notices that he seems tired, exhausted almost, though she allows him no pity. Bastard deserves every second of it.

"Pl_ease_, Dr. Leblanc," Crane begins, and he seems exasperated that she'd even say it aloud, "You think I would ruin you? That's quite the ego you seem to have." She thinks he's suppressing a smirk, and she suppresses her own vicious sneer.

"Now I didn't say that. I only meant that you seem to have gone _out of your way_ just to add that into the court proceedings. Did you do it because it was relevant, or does humiliation get your rocks off?" She's digging her nails into her briefcase, tightly, and though they're civil enough, there's a distinct vitriolic nature about their conversation. They don't quite hate one another, because they haven't got a reason to hate; they're just tossing barbs wherever they can and hoping they make the other bleed.

"You wound me." Crane says in a tone that indicates all but. "Lawyers bring out the worst in people, and psychiatric consultants are no different. Neither are psychiatrists." He insults her again in a very veiled manner, and she doesn't get it. "Mr. Anderson is focused on winning his cases, and he's very pointed about doing it. Ms. Dawes seems to be the same way, though she's not as…smug."

"Infuriating is the correct word." Jacqueline corrects him, snidely, and the elevator opens. They walk side-by-side and ignore the press taking pictures of the two psychologists walking by one another's side as if they haven't just insulted one another's education, medical degree, intelligence, and pasts; the psychiatric mud-slinging contest of the century. They walk out to the parking lot and Jacqueline walks to her car and opens the door, not giving Crane a goodbye in any way, shape, or form, and she sits down and begins to pull the door shut when it catches on something and is held open. Jacqueline, keys in the ignition, looks up to see an elegant hand holding her door shut, and she notices that his nails are polished. Very professional.

"Doctor Leblanc," Crane says, as he holds her door open and leans downwards, "I don't want this to come between us in a possible arrangement for a position at Arkham. Why don't we discuss this, and put these problems aside? Over, say, dinner?" He offers, and his glasses have slid down low enough for Jacqueline to see his eyes straight, not hidden behind his lenses, and she realizes that his eyes are _gorgeous_. She wishes hers were that shade of blue, instead of her stormy grayish blue pair. He keeps his eyes focused on her face, and she fiddles with her purse while thinking over it.

"Well…" She trails off, glancing down at her hands and then up at him again, unsure.

"It can't hurt." He urges, wearing a simpering smile that finally cracks her resolve like a glacier coming to pieces.

"No…no it can't. You have my cell number, Dr. Crane; give me a call when you'd like to set it up." Jacqueline tells him, sighing softly at her own weakness (she should still be pissed off at this asshole), as Crane lets go of her door and steps back a pace or two, giving a tap to his glasses to push them up higher on the bridge of his nose.

"Good; I'll be seeing you then, Dr. Leblanc," Crane tells her, turning away and beginning to walk. Leblanc watches him go, and with a slight sigh, hangs her head.

"You're pathetic, Jacqueline. Ten years of psychiatry, forty years of life, and you let a pair of pretty blue eyes talk you into a dinner date with an insufferable asshole?" She mutters to herself, reaching up to brush a loose strand of red hair behind her ear before using the hand still around the key in the ignition to start the car.

* * *

When Crane does call her, she's in the middle of a pint of Häagen-Dazs** a**nd starting in on her third glass of red, red wine, curled up on her white couch and watching Intervention.

When it rings, she nearly drops her spoon on the couch but fumbles and catches it, just barely, then picking up her phone and answering it while she sucks on the spoon. She's tipsy enough to have a gentle flirtatious tone in her voice as she answers.

"Hello?" She nearly giggles, and then almost swears as she comes close to spilling her pint of ice cream all over the carpet. There's a moment of very quiet breathing on the other end of the line, as she puts the ice cream carton on the table so as not to shoot herself in the foot later, and as she's about to shrug and hang up, she hears him speak.

"Dr. Leblanc? Did I interrupt your dinner? I could call back, if that's what you'd prefer…" Crane begins, and Jacqueline shakes her head, though he can't see it.

"I was, erm…" She looks at her pint of ice cream and her glass of wine, guiltily. "Just having dinner, Dr. Crane. You only interrupted a pint of Vanilla Honey Bee." She settles on her couch again, more comfortably, and reaches for the box of half-eaten pizza laying on the table in front of her.

"Good. In any case, I would like to know if you'd like to have that discussion over dinner?" He asks, and she notices that he's attempting to be casual. Jacqueline wonders if he's still slaving away at his asylum, clothes askew, exhausted, electric blue eyes glazed over with frustration and want of sleep, and for a moment, she feels something like empathy.

"Well, sure; when would you like to get together?" She asks him, and though she tries to be casual too, it comes out flirty and she thinks she hears his soft breathing pattern silence for a short moment, before continuing. There's a papery noise as she assumes he flips through a schedule organizer for an open night, before it stops and he speaks again, in a strict, clinical tone.

"Monday at three is when I am open, at the earliest. Does that work with your schedule?" Crane speaks in a clipped, frustrated tone, and Jacqueline's brow furrows. He offers to take her out (she hopes that he's offering to pay, too, because _he_ asked _her_ and if he wanted her to pay for a dinner that he invited her to, that'd be an asshole move), and then he's a total bastard to her? Ass.

"Mm…yeah, I think so." She can't help but pout a bit; the wine, it makes her feel about half her age, which is a very nice feeling when you're as self-conscious about your age as Jacqueline is. "Yeah, I'm open then. Are you gonna be in a better mood, _Jonathan_?" She queries, feeling a little frisky with a stomach full of expensive ice cream and ruby-tinted liquid courage. Frisky enough to risk calling Crane by his first name, flirtily, just to see what he'll do. He's silent for a long time, maybe a minute, and Jacqueline thinks he's hung up on her, and pouts again.

"Jerk. Hanging up on me," She mumbles, disappointed, and begins to pull the phone away from her ear when she catches him speaking. She pulls the phone back up to her ear and, flushing with embarrassment and hoping he didn't hear her, questions him hesitantly. "I'm sorry?"

"I sai_d_," The d is pronounced very harshly, and Jacqueline dazedly wonders if it's an unconscious tic whenever he's annoyed or angry, "I didn't hang up on you, Dr. Leblanc. And Monday at three it is, then?" He's eager to get this over with, as she is. Jacqueline looks at her half-empty wine glass, swirling the alcohol in a circular motion within the glass as she speaks, and in her tone is a bit of embarrassment and regret.

"Forgive me, Dr. Crane; I've had a glass of wine or two," She neglects to mention that she drank a glass before she went to trial that morning, and she drank about three when she got back home. That was kind of followed by a blurry, blackish period of time that she can't remember clearly, but it must not have been important enough to remember anyway. How long has she been drinking wine? It's been many, many years as her one constant, faithful friend that never judges her. There always seems to be a bottle or two of wine somewhere in her house at all times, anyway…

"I can tell," Crane responds in a cool monotone, and she can't tell if it's snide or if he's just stating obvious facts, though either way it's pretty rude of him to do so. "Monday, at three PM? How about Kaktus?"

"Kaktus? Isn't that the trendy little restaurant a couple streets down from Wayne Tower?" Jacqueline queries, taking time while Crane talks to take a bite of lukewarm pepperoni pizza.

"That's the one," Crane replies, short and to the point, and it takes Jacqueline a moment to swallow and then speak. She should have known that he'd be very curt with her.

"Alright, Dr. Crane; I'll be there, and we can talk about Arkham and…stuff."

'And stuff'. Great one there, Leblanc, real eloquent. That one must have knocked Crane right off his feet.

"Mm…" Crane murmurs, and there's a soft scratching noise that sounds like the noise of writing. Jacqueline waits, patiently, and her fingers are closing around the neck of her wine bottle when he speaks again and she sets it back down, reluctantly. "I'll see you there, then. _I'm looking forward to it." _He purrs the last line, and the effect is chilling and alarming in the ill intent that positively drips from his words, like venom. Jacqueline feels her face grow hot, and blames it on the wine and how creepy Crane is being. She can just picture him in that dark little office, still askew, tie loosened and the end coiled on the desk in front of him like a garish snake, but his eyes like electricity and his trademark smug smirk on his lips.

"Y…yes, Dr. Crane; I am…too. See you…_there_." Jacqueline murmurs, because despite how dangerous his words were, the tone was almost…seductive? He probably didn't notice it when trying to sound intimidating. She gasps the last word and then takes a gulp of wine from her glass; it's the wine, it's always the wine. Damn the wine. Crane hangs up on her and she hangs up too, and notices how drowsy she is.

She could go to bed, as she probably should, and sleep off the wine's rather poisonous touch, get ready for work tomorrow. She could do the smart, mature thing.

But she's also drunk. And the other option, sitting at the bottom of a large bottle on the table before her, her eyes focused on it intently, is becoming more and more attractive by the moment. Eventually, her will gives and she reaches for the bottle of wine, unable to resist smiling wryly as her fingers close around the narrow neck.

* * *

When her colleagues visit her in her office the next day, they are greeted with Jacqueline laying her head down on her desk, her natural red hair a curtain hiding her face and shoulders. There's a bottle of water beside her, as well as some unflavored gum and what looks like some sort of medication made and used expressly as a desperate last saving throw against a hangover.

"Jack!" A cheerful female voice, shrill in a tolerable sort of way, rings out loudly, as the woman raps her knuckles on the door equally as loudly. Jacqueline groans loudly, hiding her head as the visitor, a doctor in her mid-twenties with a heart-shaped face and big almond eyes walks in, closing the door behind her near silently. "Sorry, honey. That any better?" She teases, good-naturedly, walking over to sit on the ailing doctor's desk.

"Tanya…go 'way…" Jacqueline murmurs, swinging her arm wildly in the fellow doctor's direction in a half-assed attempt to get her to leave her be. Tanya Procter dodges it easily, more or less with a very slight lean away, and laughs.

"Jack, I don't know how you ever got through psych school; you're nocturnal to the core." She teases, long dark brunette hair hanging down her back in a simple ponytail, and Jacqueline raises her head to stare at her with hazy, bloodshot eyes.

"Not me, not me. Not my fault." Jacqueline murmurs, quietly.

"And whose is it, then? Crane, who I hear you're going on a date with tomorrow night?" Tanya teases, before she catches a whiff of Jacqueline's breath and her happy mood is dampened. "Is it the wine's?"

Jacqueline groans and turns her head away, almost childishly. "Not this again, Tanya."

"Yes, this again; you can still do your work, and pretend, but you think we're stupid? We know you come to work hungover half the goddamn time, Jacqueline." She presses, her brows knitting together in displeasure or anger, "You won't admit it, though, because you're stubborn as a mule."

"I don't admit it," Jacqueline states, tersely, "because I _don't_ have a problem." She sits up, and the motion makes her very sick, though she won't let Tanya see it. "So I like a little wine now and then; 'sat a crime? I like wine. No problem with a glass now and then. Take the edge off."

"No, there's no problem with wine now and then," Procter speaks to Jacqueline like she's a child, but she's used to doing it, "But you don't drink it now and then. You drink it _all day long_. You won't admit it, Jacqueline Leblanc, but you're an alcoholi-" She begins the accursed word, and Jacqueline slams her fist down on the desk to cut her off.

"I'm _not_ an alcoholic, Tanya; alcoholics fall down and pass out in puddles of vomit, sleep in gutters, black out; I don't do those things. I'm not an alcoholic, and I'm not going to AA meetings. So _there_."

"Yeah, and I _haven't_ had to drive you home three times in the last four months." Tanya notes, sarcastically, and Jacqueline groans.

"You're impossible, did you know that? I could've driven home just fine, but you were paranoid. Ya should be happy that I let you indulge your ego in trying to feel good about helping me out." She tries a half-hearted guilt trip, but it crumbles into dust at Tanya's un-amused, nonplussed stare. She grabs her white coat off the back of the chair and twirls it on, standing and walking towards the door with a determined pace.

"Where you going?" Tanya asks, casually, leaning on the desk as she watches Jacqueline open the door with her personal key in hand.

"Walk." Jacqueline answers, curtly, and closes the door behind her a little louder than she probably needed to, walking down the blank-toned hallway and towards the lab.

When she gets there, Jacqueline locks the door behind her with her key and surveys her lab, all to herself. It was supposed to be another section of the hospital for toying with new medications and their reactions with one another, but then someone else took care of that purpose and this section of the hospital hasn't been reassigned to another purpose yet, mainly because it's full of junk.

It's all hers.

She walks around the lab table, knowing that the camera to this room is busted and nobody fixes it because nobody thinks anybody is using this lab for anything at all. But in a corner, hidden behind useless junk, is a small experiment. Jacqueline begins to toy with her concoction, for the millionth time: she's been playing around with this idea, but has only been devoting serious time and attention to it as of the last ten years.

Progress can be said to be…slow.

Balancing testosterone and estrogen, to cause that initial rush; the second mixture of carefully balanced chemicals being pheromones, dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin, to try and recreate that pleasurable numbness without compare, and trace amounts of other chemicals including adrenalines to try and make it last. Jacqueline Leblanc is trying to make artificial love.

She can't say that it's been a very rewarding process: this project sucks up her time, and the aged equipment that she has at her disposal is less than desirable, and much less than current sophistication's standards. She's working with aged materials in a desperate attempt to recreate an sensation that's almost impossible to create on a whim.

Jacqueline spends all day in the lab, and when asked about it, says that she went in there to study her files in peace and quiet. No one questions this answer; there's a bit more screaming than allowable for calm and peaceful reading where Jacqueline's office is situated. No one begrudges her a little peace and quiet.

When she gets home, setting down her things and heading straight for the kitchen, she's reaching for the bottle on top of her kitchen shelf and stops, remembering Tanya's words.

'_I'm no alcoholic._' Jacqueline states, mentally, and snorts softly at the idea as her fingers close around the bottle.


	5. More Wine, and Arkham

Kaktus, Monday night, four PM. Jacqueline sits at their table, hands folded in her lap delicately, staring at the empty table in front of her and waiting. She's wearing a nice blouse and skirt, black, because it's a nice restaurant and Crane has good taste; why not look nice? She doesn't even consider a possibility that she wants to look nice to impress him.

Crane is one hour late. Jacqueline is irate, irritated with him; he invites her to dinner to put aside hostilities, and then stiffs her. And the as the waiter passes by, she catches his attention.

"Could I get some wine? Merlot, and _definitely_ not vintage." She urges, and he gives a curt nod before weaving away in between the sea of tables. She can't afford vintage wine, though she'd really like some. Any wine would work, and will work, because if Crane isn't here within the span of five minutes, she's going to get shitfaced right here at their table.

A moment after the wine arrives, and Jacqueline is in the process of pouring herself a hearty glass of it, Crane arrives. She looks nice; he looks like hell, as his tie is loosened and hanging limply from his neck, his hair is messy, as if he's been running his hands through it in a nervous sort of manner, his eyes are bloodshot from lack of sleep, and his clothes are disheveled. He drops into their seat after a few moments of weaving past waiters and waitresses, impatiently, and as he sits, he drops his briefcase in the spot beside him. Jacqueline cocks her head slightly, feeling a bit alarmed at how exhausted and disheveled Crane is, and feels enough sympathy to ask.

"Are you alright, Dr. Crane?" She queries, offering him her glass of wine, and he lightly smacks her hand away, before jabbing at his glasses to push them up higher on the bride of his nose.

"Fine, Leblanc. Did you order?" He snaps at her, and Jacqueline retracts her peace offering of wine, precious wine, and pulls it to her lips. Crane notices, offhandedly, that she's glaring at him now, and he wonders what's pissed her off now.

"No. I was _waiting_. For _you_."

"Really? It looks otherwise." He gestures to her glass of wine, and she humphs while taking a swallow of it. Crane's eyes follow the wine glass as she pulls it away, and he sees the fine imprint of pink lipstick on the glass. Pink lipstick for friends, red lipstick for lovers and dates. He'd heard, from somewhere, that lipstick colour had a language all its own. It's relieving that she's not wearing red. But he thinks that, for this dinner with _him_, she should be wearing a shade of gray, or maybe asphyxia blue.

"Hmph. My willpower had just barely cracked when you showed up." Jacqueline huffs, and Crane inwardly wonders how such an immature woman ever became a doctor. He's seen her professionalism in the courtroom, but this is the first time he's ever met her outside of court and professionalism's boundaries, and she's very…not what he expected. Little black dress, girlish pink lipstick, a selfish and almost childish nature; it's a startling change.

He picks up his menu, offhandedly reaching for his collar and tugging at it, and just picks something. He wants to get this over with.

Jacqueline does the exact same thing. If anybody thought they were dates, then they'd have noticed by now that there's still a vitriolic nature about their interactions.

Jacqueline orders the steak. Crane gets the chicken. They stare at each other for brief seconds before staring in completely different directions while eating, saying very little because they have nothing in common that they _want_ to talk about. The meal passes in silence, their plates are taken away and they break to the wine, still not speaking with one another. During his glass of wine, Crane decides to break the silence. The wine is cheap and leaves a bad aftertaste on his tongue, but Jacqueline bought it for the both of them so he's not going to raise complaints.

"…Dr. Leblanc," Crane eventually sighs as they're having a glass of wine after dinner, though Jacqueline is on her third, "Let's put these hostilities aside." He's not going to say anything more than that, because he doesn't think he needs to apologize or anything like that. Jacqueline sips at her wine, dutifully, keeping her eyes lowered and focused on her quivering reflection in the reddish-tinted alcohol.

"Fine then; let's do that." She replies with a dull tone of voice, and Crane watches her finish her glass of wine, and go for a fourth. He reaches across the table, which is easy with his long arms, and pulls the half-empty wine bottle towards himself, keeping icy blue eyes on Jacqueline's crestfallen expression.

"I think you've had enough, Dr. Leblanc." He tells her, in deadpan, and tugs the bottle back further as she reaches out to take it back from him.

"I should know when I've had enough." She shoots back, reaching, and has to lean across the table to keep her fingertips on the bottle. The bottle dances away from her touch as he leans back in his seat, holding it protectively away from her. "Give it, Crane."

"No." Jacqueline narrows her eyes as he says this, dismissively, in a sort of way that seems to tell her that the argument is over. The argument is _not_ over. Crane watches Jacqueline literally lean over the table, pressing the plates and things aside as she leans forward, and for a moment, Crane sees a large amount of cleavage as she leans too far. He turns his head, taking the wine bottle and setting it on top of his briefcase. The cork is in it; the bottle won't spill if it somehow tips. As Jacqueline glares at him, he doesn't look back at her and doesn't make eye contact until she sits back down, pissed, crossing her arms over her chest for a moment. She then realizes that the top of her dress has slipped down a bit and so she pulls it up, still flushed, still angry with him, and still very drunk. When she looks up at him and sees that he's still not making eye contact, she cocks her head inquisitively and stares at him, curious.

"Jo-onathan?" She croons his name, a curious expression still on her face, as she tries to get him to look at her again. He's not; he refuses to make eye contact, and merely diverts his gaze to anything but her face. She smiles then, and when Crane sees it out of the corner of his eye, he is disgusted. What a lush. "Embarrassed?" She asks, in a sing-song voice showing how intoxicated she is. He chuckles, though it's dry and humorless; forced.

"Embarrassed? Over your drunkard antics? _Har**d**ly_." He scorns her, pulling his silver glasses off of his face, shaking his head slightly as he does, before beginning to polish the lenses with his tie. She pouts, he can see it out of his peripheral vision, and when he puts his glasses back on, he stands to leave, to end this catastrophe of an attempted return to civility, and he opens his mouth to tell her this when her phone rings and cuts him off. She raises a finger to him, signing him to wait: 'Just a minute', she says to him with a slight giggle in her voice, before answering in an equally giggling tone. "Hell-o-o? It's Jack Daniels." She snorts slightly at using her high school moniker, before listening intently. Crane watches the color, and all joviality, fade from her face, before her tone reverts to a cold clinical verse. "I see. I'll be there in a minute." She snaps her phone shut, shoves it in her bag, and gets up from the table, sidling out of the booth and then staggering down towards the door. She's wasted. Crane stands, alarmed, and follows her. He doesn't touch her to try and steady her, just walks slightly behind and to her right, watching.

"Has something happened?" Crane asks, though it's less out of concern and more out of curiosity. He has his briefcase at his side, having grabbed it on the way after her, and when a waiter stops them because they haven't paid their tab, Jacqueline takes out her wallet, pulls out a handful of bills, and shoves them towards the man before hurrying out the door and into the afternoon drizzle. The sky is overcast and gray. It's raining very lightly.

"**_My_** patient, Mr. Sanders," Jacqueline murmurs, digging into her purse for her car keys, "Is going berserk. He's taken a nurse hostage. Dammit!" She snaps that last word, dropping her keys to the pavement, and as she reaches for them, Crane casually steps on them to keep her from getting at them. She looks up at him, quizzically.

"You're completely drunk, Dr. Leblanc, though your obvious coherence tells me that this isn't your first time being so thoroughly intoxicated. If you even attempt to drive, you'll most likely kill yourself and a crowd of other people, and possibly myself as well." He tells her, in a monotone that allows no room for argument, and she watches him scoop up her keys and put them in his own pocket. "Take a taxi home. Mr. Sanders is my patient as well, and**_ I'll _**handle it." This order is accompanied by a slight smile, a very smug sort of sneer and a tone of victory in his voice. "He's being held in Arkham _anyway_." He turns to walk to his car, and when she closes her hands around his upper arm as tight as she can manage, he looks back to see her glaring.

"Don't give me that, Crane. He's a patient to both of us. You take me, too, or I'll notify the court that you're withholding possible evidence to Mr. Sanders' sanity or insanity from me."

Crane glares at her now, as harshly as possible, and she doesn't shrink back as she has before. He doesn't want to bring her along, but he doesn't want to get tangled up in the legal system's wires either. After a moment of deliberation, he jerks his arm free of her grip and then grabs hold of her wrist, too tightly, painfully tight, and begins to drag her towards his car. He shoves her towards the passenger's seat and slides into the driver's, starting the engine. "Do _not_ vomit in my car."

"I should probably be unconscious right now, but I'm not. Don't patronize me." She sneers right back, and then the two fall into an extremely uncomfortable silence where Jacqueline remains pissed off at Crane and Crane remains pissed off at Jacqueline. When they ride through the Narrows and towards Arkham, Jacqueline is feeling dizzy; she's in cold sweats, though is trying to keep from letting Crane know. He already knows, but he's not saying anything.

By the time they march into Arkham, Crane in a smooth step and Jacqueline in a drunken stagger that she's trying to smooth out as well, there are already a haze of doctors surrounding the man in the orange jumpsuit with the woman pinned, a shattered piece of glass to her throat. Crane walks ahead of Jacqueline, ignoring her now because she's where she needs to be and he's no longer responsible for her, and begins to ask how Sanders was able to get his hands on a weapon of any kind.

Jacqueline stands off to the side, leaning against a wall and feeling sick to her stomach, and she sees Sanders glance at her and immediately snarl.

"Oh great; doc Bellatrix is here. Gonna try and talk me out of it?" He sneers at her, and the Arkham doctors glance over at her. Kaseff is off on the other side, and merely glances at her for a moment before returning his gaze to Sanders. Jacqueline shakes her shoulders, straightens herself up, and speaks in her clinical tone.

"I'm going to try."

Sanders laughs, harshly, and the nurse squeals in terror as he threatens to slice her throat open. "Yeah? Not gonna work, doc. How 'bout this; you come over here, n' I'll use you instead of her. How 'bout **that**?" He taunts, in his rough accent that sounds like he's from Chicago. Jacqueline stares at him, deadpan, before feeling wine and bile rise in the back of her throat. She swallows it, with a disgusted expression, and then begins to walk towards Sanders easily. Her hand is slightly behind her thigh, hidden from the criminal's view. Sanders lets the nurse go as Jacqueline comes within arm's length, and curls his arm around her waist, dragging her back against him and pressing the shard of glass against her throat. She winces, slightly, as the jagged edge draws blood.

"Noble of ya," Sanders drawls in her ear, as Jacqueline watches the doctors' expressions turn to horror and dismay at having one of their own as captive, the nurse already being pulled away to be treated. "But stupid. You forget that I don't like you? I think 'yer a whore." His free hand moves to brush her chest through the blouse right as she leans back, sticking him in the side with something sharp. He tries to slash her as she jerks away, and succeeds in causing a nasty slash from her chin to her right ear as she jerks away, leaving an empty syringe stuck in his side. It takes a few minutes but the sedatives kick in fast; he goes down, and when Crane gets a look at Jacqueline as they treat her, she's smirking at him, victoriously. Even going so far as to interrupt the medical care she's receiving just to point at him and scream, '**_Ha!!_**', in a way that implies she thinks she's proved herself right about Sanders' sanity. Crane suppresses the twitching that his eyebrow is starting to do, and instead, slips off to his office.

Jacqueline lets them treat her, now quiet since Crane is gone and she's got no one to taunt about being fucking right, until she sees Kaseff out of her peripheral. He's just standing there, glaring. She grins, crookedly, and shrugs, in a way that reads, 'Whaddya gonna do? Can't help these thinks, yannow', and he just storms off. She feels guilty, but only long enough for them to sterilize her cut and then put clean bandaging over it, before they tell her she can leave and she decides to stagger away. She only asks one thing, her skin pallid and clammy and her voice quivering.

"Where are the bathrooms?"

* * *

Unfortunately, it takes Crane almost an eternity to find her again.

Even more unfortunately, when he does, she's in the bathroom and in the process of vomiting up an expensive meal. He only leans in the doorway, and calls out to her (he's sure she'll hear it with the echoing the walls are wont to do).

"Dr. Leblanc; when you're…through here, I'd like to speak with you." That's all he says, and is only answered with the noise of another bout of wet, disgusting vomiting. And she might be crying, too; wouldn't be surprising. Jonathan Crane isn't an empathetic man, or even a sympathetic man; she chose to drink that much, and she's paying for it; why should he coddle her for it? She's older than _he_ is, for god's sake.

So he leaves.

Five minutes later, the nurse that Jacqueline saved comes in and holds her hair back for her.


	6. Positions in the Madhouse

Jacqueline hangs around the asylum, until she gets her bearings again. This involves passing out on the cold Arkham ladies' room floor, after the nice nurse leaves, and being woken up an indiscriminate amount of time later by a janitor. She rinses out her mouth in the bathroom sink, and staggers out of the ladies' room a mess; she looks as exhausted and spent as Crane did when he staggered into that restaurant. And as she staggers into Crane's office, after some directions from various Arkham staff members, she realizes that the tables have turned; she looks like hell and he's prim and proper again, sitting behind his desk in his lavishly-decorated office, and Jacqueline finds herself slightly jealous. He glances up from some papers, and gestures towards a chair.

"Sit, Dr. Leblanc." He orders, and though there's no forceful tone in his voice, there doesn't need to be for him to get his point across. She sits down, makeup smeared and the taste of bile on her tongue. She wants to brush her teeth as soon as she gets home. "Let's get straight to the point," Crane says suddenly, and regains her roaming attention. His glasses have slipped low on his nose again, and he presses them back up higher. "That was an idiotic move back there." His deadpan is immovable, but Jacqueline just cocks an eyebrow at him.

"Dr. Crane, I _know_ that. I'm not stupid." She chides him, as if he's the stupid one, and his eyes narrow unnoticeably.

"In any case," He sighs, holding something out to her. Paper. She takes it, gingerly, and looks it over with confusion. It's an application for Arkham as a doctor. Permanency? A permanent doctor's position in Arkham? "It would have been a fiasco if you weren't a gambler. The last thing we need is a swarm of police within Arkham's boundaries, riling up the patients, making the staff irate." He narrates, as Jacqueline reads over the form with a bit of confusion. "Though your actions were…_devil-may-care_ at best," He glances up at her for a moment, a flash of brilliant blue, "but you were able to manipulate Mr. Sanders into a situation that you handled…well."

"And?" She asks him, already feeling a slow pulsing migraine building behind her left eye.

"And," Crane begins, irritated, "I would like to offer you a position as a doctor in Arkham. Your credentials and experience check out. You've proven yourself as able to handle high-stress situations, which is a trait that we look for above many others. Will you accept?"

Jacqueline just stares at him a moment. And when she thinks of Kaseff, pissed beyond belief at her stupid drunken gamble, she feels shame flush her cheeks for a moment. Even if she can't make it up to him in any other way, there's one way that she can at least try.

"I accept." She says, closing her eyes, sighing the answer, and Crane doesn't seem to care if she's accepting for herself or for some outside reason. It's not his problem.

"Good. I'll start up the paperwork to have you transferred to this complex," Crane tells her, beginning to hunt for the appropriate forms. "Be prepared to move within the week. The process is rather quick. And," He looks up at her and meets her eyes, and he smiles at her in a way that seems vaguely threatening, though she can't put her finger on why. "Welcome to Arkham."

Jacqueline leaves then, and Crane refuses to give her the keys to her car again, though he's neglecting the fact that her car isn't even at the asylum (Jacqueline has a creeping suspicion that he's just doing it to fuck with her), and has a cab called for her. It takes her home, and she realizes with chagrin that Crane gave her no way to pay for it except for the money not in her wallet, because there's nothing in there, but in her pocket. She does, but just barely, and then walks in, and decides whether or not to drown herself in her shower right now. Working with Crane, no matter how remote their contact may be, is a rather distasteful notion.

She flips a coin. Heads, she drowns herself, or better yet, drinks herself into oblivion. Tails, she tries the position for a week or two and then decides whether or not to drown herself in alcohol then.

Tails. She's working there. She can't tell if she's happy about this, or not.

* * *

The move of her 'project' from Gotham General to her home is arduous. But it is finished. She says her goodbyes to everyone, including Tanya Procter, who tells her to lay off the firewater, though almost jokingly, and the two leave on good terms, as Jacqueline almost unwillingly turns in her Gotham General white doctor's coat, to get her new uniform at Arkham the next day. She also warns Jacqueline to watch out for Crane.

"Because it's always the quiet ones that turn out to be psychos." She tells Jacqueline, who laughs.

"Crane? A psycho? Yeah _right_; the guy probably can't take a _piss_ without consulting his schedule to see if he has time." She laughs, and Tanya laughs too.

"Watch out, though; Ted Bundy was a real nice guy until you died watching him start to eat what's left of you."

"But that's the beauty of it; Crane is an _asshole_. There's no way he's secretly a serial killer or something. They have to have charm, _finesse_; not a stick up their asses." Jacqueline teases, and she wonders if Crane's ears are burning right now. Tanya walks her to the front door as she prepares to go home and prepare, arduously, for her first day at Arkham Asylum tomorrow morning.

"I bet he's a sadist in secret. Be careful if you try and bed him, honey." Tanya laughs, as Jacqueline laughs as well, but harshly and derisively.

"I _hate_ Crane, and he's half my age."

"Never stopped you before, Jack." Tanya notes, offhandedly, and Jacqueline gives her a playful shove as they walk to the front doors outside of the hospital.

"Oh, _hush_. Me wanting Crane is going to happen right about when I befriend a serial killer who says that he _didn't mean to do it_." She laughs, and Tanya slaps her on the back.

"Yeah, well, keep in touch in the Giggle Farm, hun." Tanya waves goodbye, and Jacqueline drives home (Crane didn't give her keys back yet, but she has a spare set anyway) and prepares for the next day, looking at her chemical mixes almost longingly. She's thinking about how she's going to continue her research when she remembers Arkham having state-of-the-art equipment. A devious scheme begins to form in her mind, and for once, she doesn't have a glass or three of wine before bed.


End file.
